Robert James Zwerling

Implementing an Analytics Culture for Data Driven Decisions Robert James Zwerling

For many years Finance has had a monopoly on reporting numbers to business leaders, but this monopoly no longer exists. Unless Finance gets into the analytics game, Finance risks being sidelined and replaced in many of its FP& A functions. Finance needs to act fast and step up its game. Turning data into insights and foresight is crucial for, what we call, Next Generation Finance. With recent emergent technologies and a change in mentality of wanting to influence decisions, Finance has started the journey of advancing from the Trusted Scorekeeper towards the Strategic Partner. In the journey towards a Strategic Partner an analytics culture for data driven decisions needs to be developed. A culture that has four key components of Mindset, People, Processes, and Systems. These components, when aligned, institutionalize the practices about data driven decisions for business optimization. This book describes how to build a culture of data driven decisions using analytics. It purports that Finance becomes the hub of analytics to partner with the business to deliver the insights and foresight that impact the strategic decisions. Creating a culture of data driven decisions with analytics requires a Roadmap to transform Finance to the World Class Strategic Partner. This book lays out that roadmap...